Personal Log 71: 19th - 25th October, 3301 (Part Two)
02 Oct 2016Jemine Caesar
19th - 25th October, 3301 (Part Two) When Nathalie and Sam returned with the results of their meeting with Alvin Salmon, I was both elated and troubled. Elated to find myself one more step closer to proving that Harold Duval was my father, but troubled by the knowledge that I would have to travel across the Empire for the next piece of the puzzle. It all added up to yet another restless night.
The next morning I told Sam about Nathalie's confession of the day before, begging him not to be angry with me for sharing an intimate moment with her.
"I can see the bond that the two of you share," he assured me, with a kiss. "That bond is above friendship, even nearing family in my eyes. And even if things did become intimate, I wouldn't hold anything against you for doing it."
Through tears of relief and happiness, I thanked him for being so patient and understanding. Sam then gave me some news of his own. He had dashed back to Beta Hydri the previous day, to support his sister, Jenna.
"She had a brief scare with the baby," he explained. "As the two of us are incredibly close she asked for me. Luke's away on Naval business so couldn't be around. It was a false alarm in the end. She's on bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy, and there's a chance that she could give birth before her due date in January."
We prepared ourselves for the long voyage to Koyans, a system under the control of Aisling Duval. Hoping to save us a journey to the far side of the empire, I had sent some k-casts to the Koyans system starport authorities asking for confirmation of Edward Harvard's whereabouts.
The replies I received were not very complimentary about the man. I was told that he owed money to lots of people, though none of them held out any hope of being paid. He took on little delivery jobs for employers who didn't know how unreliable he was, and those were few and far between. And, unfortunately for us, he never answered calls. But I did learn that, when he's not drunk at the controls of his Asp, he's drunk in the Emperor's Head, a venue described to me as Bainbridge Dock starport's best dive bar. So at least we now knew exactly where to find him.
Happily the entire trip passed without major incident; a couple of interdictions were swiftly dealt with by Sam and Nath. We made stopovers at Ross 104, Charunder, Oxossi, Piorimudjar and Ambo for refuelling, and I managed to make around 12,000Cr from the sales of stellar cartography data.
I spent most of the long trip in silence, content to listen to Sam and Nathalie talking ships, tactics and weapons over the comms. I had too much on my mind to join in, but even if I had I knew very little about the technical details they were discussing.
I did, however, receive a call from Rudolphus, asking how I was. I realised his contact tracker would be showing my ship ident deep within Imperial space. I told him I was with Sam and Nathalie on a 'quest', and left it at that.
In turn Rudolphus told me he had been busy setting up his own faction in a system called Apuri. "Look on the map for Hereford City," he told me.
"You will be Emperor one day," I teased him.
"It is only one system, Jem," he replied. "But it is good to have ambition."
*****
We arrived in the Koyans system on October 23rd. Nathalie had already mentioned that she was taking a risk entering Empire space. Her participation against the Empire in the battle at Munshin had not gone unobserved, and there was a chance that she might now have become a target. This was confirmed when we spotted a bulletin board notice after slipping in to Bainbridge Dock starport.
The notice was an Imperial contract to assassinate Nathalie (under her callsign of 'Nagita'), on a charge of freeing slaves from their duties to the Empire, for a reward of 250,000Cr. Most worryingly, the notice also stated that Nagita's ident had already been detected in the vicinity of Koyans during the previous day. The contract declared allegiance to Arissa Lavigny-Duval, and was valid within a 50 light-year radius of Koyans. Sam suggested Nathalie should adopt a pseudonym for the time being, and Nathalie chose the name 'Sarah Scott'.
Nathalie then said she had a surprise for me, and presented me with a small wrapped box. Inside was a beautiful white-gold anklet, decorated with three teardrop motifs.
"Oh, Nathalie!" I cried, giving her a big hug. "It's absolutely gorgeous! Thank you so much."
"Seems it's a day for surprises," Sam said. "I've also got something for you, Jem." On his dataslate, Sam showed me a 3-D render of a custom-built module for The Last Thing. "It's a wardrobe module!"
Sam explained that the module would be covered by ship insurance at no extra cost. "Unfortunately," he added, "that doesn't include the clothes!" I rewarded Sam with another big hug and a kiss.
"Thank you!" I said. "It's perfect!"
A short time later, Sam told Nathalie that he had been in contact with Admiral Remi by secure k-cast. "He's managed to temporarily wipe your ship ident from Federal records," he said. "So you should be able to move around a little more freely at least."
Presently we decided the hour had come for us to locate Edward Harvard. I found the Emperor's Head bar listed on the Bainbridge Dock directory. We set off, feeling rather conspicuous in our Federation-style clothing.